Classes: Weapons and Race

It's a bummer, but there will likely be many reskins that provide visual diversity. Warriors still have grenade launchers and arm cannons as part of their skill set.

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I hope they make GW2 look bad, and it has a ton! of skins.

Mordesh : “They’re like zombies in skinny jeans.” ~ Mike Donatelli - ZAM ArticleConcerning Chua:"I want to see how far a Granok can throw one of those things , and then watch him punch the leftover ones in the face." ~ convicted

With one a weapon system I personally think it's success relies on lots of aesthetic options (skins and whatnot). Who's to say your tech-sword has to look like a sword. Maybe it will be able to look like a chainsaw, a sharpened tree or a Moody covered in barbed wire tied to a stick holding a sword that is made of rainbows.

This I get, but they were never going to do that, so the 2nd point still boggles.

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Pretty much. Truth is, it is their game as envisioned by the devs. Maybe it was just a badly phrased statement And kudos for trying to give reasons at all, most designers don't bother much The first one is a solid 'excuse' and truth is, in regards to weapons, most of us want the variety for the fluff. Given awesome abilities that will hopefully, allow us to compose interesting action sets, pretty sure everyone will adjust to the single weapon aspect very quickly. Plus, depending on how well the game is received, it's yet another option to potentially consider in the future, once the money starts flowing in I hoped for more myself, but it's not a game breaking feature in any way. Combat is less about weapons more about mechanics and feeling fluid and natural.

We've seen in old gameplay vids that, even at the lowest levels, the weapons you pick up have unique ability modifiers. So as an Esper you're going to have a bag full of psyblades for different situations. One reduces the CD on a major defensive ability, another for pvp that increases the duration of your root...

That's a pretty uncommon brand of variety that is tough to implement if the different classes are sharing weapons. It doesn't prevent different weapon types, just means everything needs to be class specific.

I think the single weapon per class mechanic is actually incredible. Lets look at this from the side of a raider/PvPer.

In a raid scene we COMPLETELY ELIMINATE cross class competition for weapons, and this to me is awesome. How many people actually enjoyed competing with other classes for ranged weapons, or two handers? No one enjoyed that! It simply meant you had to wait even longer to get weapon upgrades. We also lower the initial barrier to entry, while increasing the upper range of skilled play, why is this? Because we're now far more dependent on the complexity and variety that skills will provide. Our level of skill as a player can now focus on improving our spatial awareness, and use of skills.

For PvP I always played a warrior healer combo, and having to grind out a ton of extra points just to have a sword and board was always frustrating and annoying, no one else had to do that, but to get to the top tier of play you would have to.

To me this is an interesting change, and if implemented correctly with a wide variety of skills, skins, and unique weapon functionality the system can be great. If those things don't happen and we're all running around with the same weapon at the elder game, then I think that could really kill part of the game.

I think the single weapon per class mechanic is actually incredible. Lets look at this from the side of a raider/PvPer.

In a raid scene we COMPLETELY ELIMINATE cross class competition for weapons, and this to me is awesome. How many people actually enjoyed competing with other classes for ranged weapons, or two handers? No one enjoyed that! It simply meant you had to wait even longer to get weapon upgrades. We also lower the initial barrier to entry, while increasing the upper range of skilled play, why is this? Because we're now far more dependent on the complexity and variety that skills will provide. Our level of skill as a player can now focus on improving our spatial awareness, and use of skills.

For PvP I always played a warrior healer combo, and having to grind out a ton of extra points just to have a sword and board was always frustrating and annoying, no one else had to do that, but to get to the top tier of play you would have to.

To me this is an interesting change, and if implemented correctly with a wide variety of skills, skins, and unique weapon functionality the system can be great. If those things don't happen and we're all running around with the same weapon at the elder game, then I think that could really kill part of the game.

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I just hope that if there is a "roll" system for loot drops, that ONLY the class that can use the item can roll on it. Off-spec and alternate character rolls should be at the discretion of the person who can actually use it at the moment of the item drop.

I think the single weapon per class mechanic is actually incredible. Lets look at this from the side of a raider/PvPer.

In a raid scene we COMPLETELY ELIMINATE cross class competition for weapons, and this to me is awesome. How many people actually enjoyed competing with other classes for ranged weapons, or two handers? No one enjoyed that! It simply meant you had to wait even longer to get weapon upgrades. We also lower the initial barrier to entry, while increasing the upper range of skilled play, why is this? Because we're now far more dependent on the complexity and variety that skills will provide. Our level of skill as a player can now focus on improving our spatial awareness, and use of skills.

For PvP I always played a warrior healer combo, and having to grind out a ton of extra points just to have a sword and board was always frustrating and annoying, no one else had to do that, but to get to the top tier of play you would have to.

To me this is an interesting change, and if implemented correctly with a wide variety of skills, skins, and unique weapon functionality the system can be great. If those things don't happen and we're all running around with the same weapon at the elder game, then I think that could really kill part of the game.

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You summed this up very well for me. I think the single-weapon designation will actually be quite successful. As long as they have plenty of variety of skins per toon, I think this will die down as a concern once the game launches.

Also take into account that with weapons being class exclusive, they can follow the theme of the class! This was an issue in other MMOs, when new raid content would come out they'd generally only put out one skin (with recolors) for each weapon type, so you could end up being a Paladin with a skull and darkness weapon, or a Necromancer with a froufrou glowy healer weapon.

I agree that two identical weapons look better, and its probably easier to balance if a dual wielding weapon takes up one item slot, or is one item is what I meant by that. Same number of gem slots and all that and no awkward stat balancing or enchantment configurations or the like. I do not mind it as long as theres a cool way of customizing your equipment, like I said earlier I hate looking like everyone else, especially when it comes end game time and all the high end players are wearing the same gear.

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Sorry this is late since you posted (just joined) and you may have already found this out but they have confirmed a costume feature and there are armor / weapon dyes in the game. Which is incredible

Also: Who else loves the weapons that are in? Instead of typical-bow-nr.2834-class we get a spell-gunslinger (spellslinger) which looks badass,
a mage with a psyblade,
a warrior with a megaman-power-arm-things and a technosword, (will be my pick.)
and a clawwielding assasin.

I love all of these weapons but being able to have a robotic-super-arm-wrist-thing is just too cool to not play Warrior. I wanted to tank anyway!